


got your heart in a headlock

by sallycake



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Sydney ships it, matt's a bit of an idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallycake/pseuds/sallycake
Summary: “Do you think he knows what he’s doing?” Matt asks.Sydney laughs, “he’s like, twelve, of course he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”Matt frowns. “Okay, maybe don’t call him a literal child when you’re trying to get me to have sex with him.”





	got your heart in a headlock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [honeypottrap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeypottrap/gifts).



> This is set during the 2016-2017 season, and it mostly follows the canon timeline from like, October through December. 
> 
> The title is from the Imogen Heap song Headlock. 
> 
> Also, my beta thought that Sydney was Sidney Crosby for the first half of this story...
> 
> ALSO honeypottrap, I hope you like this! I was really pumped based on your dear author letter :)

The first time Sydney meets Mitch, Matt is honestly a little bit nervous, and he has no idea why.

They’ve talked about Mitch, is the thing. Matt had come home from camp one day and said, “I think one of the rookies has a crush on me.” And Syd had barely looked up from her laptop to say, “Oh, that’s cute.”

It became a bit of a thing after that. Matt would come home and Syd would ask, “How’s your number one fan?” because Syd’s the best, and Matt would respond with some silly thing that Mitchy had done.

 

Now, they’re at a party at Mo’s, and Sydney and Mitch are about to meet. Matt is freaking out, just a little bit. He shouldn’t be; he’s a league vet, whatever that means, and he’ll fight anyone, anytime– he should be able to deal with introducing his girlfriend to the teenager who has a crush on him.

Mo is awkwardly taking their coats and trying to offer five different people drinks and Matt sees Mitch talking to Auston and Willy by the kitchen. Mitch is flailing his arms around explaining something, and he looks so happy. But when he sees Matt he lights up even more.

“MARTY!!” He waves, like an idiot, and basically runs over to meet Syd.

Matt grabs Mitch into a headlock to ruffle his hair, and Mitch grins back at him, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. Mitch is overly friendly with everyone, so he’s right on top of Sydney, hugging her, and smiling at her, asking about her family. Matt realizes that he just really wanted them to like each other– and they do, a lot, immediately– so that’s okay.

Sydney’s not the one Mitch is hanging all over though, and most of his questions are about Matt. And when he runs out of real questions, he and Syd actually end up discussing the various hairstyles Matt had when he played for the Islanders.

“How did you feel about his long caveman hair? I’m kind of jealous that I missed that,” asks Mitch.

Syd laughs, “Honestly, it was pretty great. Plus, if it got in the way he could put it in a ponytail. Now he just has these floppy bits that fall in his face, and you can’t do anything with that.”

Mitch nods, as he stares at Matt and his hair. His eyes look a little bit glazed over. “Yeah, I bet.”

When Mitch finally peels himself off of Matt’s side to get another beer, Sydney turns to him with wide eyes and says, “Wow, you really weren’t kidding.” And that eases the last of his anxiety.

It’s just, when you’ve talked about someone’s crush on you as much as Matt’s talked about Mitch, there’s a bit of pressure that it’s going to live up to the talk. Like, what if it had all been in Matt’s head? God, that would have been so embarrassing.

He’s feeling pretty proud of himself by the end of the party. Not every guy would be confident enough to just like, be best bros with a dude who has a crush on him. And Mitchy is a great bro. Matt doesn’t feel weird about it at all.

 

They’re heading home after the party when the other shoe drops; Sydney says casually, in the middle of a sentence about the other rookies, “—and when you told me about all the flirting, you definitely didn’t tell me that you were flirting back.” She moves on, keeps talking about his other teammates, about their wives and girlfriends, and how much she likes them all. She probably can’t tell that Matt is trying not to crash the car, and reevaluating every tiny thing he’s done for the past month. Because– was he flirting back? That’s not a thing that Matt thought he was doing, not a thing he thought he’d do.

He thinks about touching Mitchy’s hair, and grabbing his arms– the way he’s always hugging him, and how good it feels, and—

He decides to stop thinking about it.

 

It’s not until they’re in Chicago for their fourth away game and snuggled up on Matt’s bed that he realizes the whole Mitch thing might actually be a problem.

They usually hang out in Matt’s room on the road, since he has a room to himself. Tonight Mitch wants to watch Friends and Matt wants to watch Gladiator, which devolves into a ridiculous argument, because Mitch has no chill.

“Friends is a classic and I don’t want to have to think about anything!” Mitch yells, even though he’s still grinning.

Matt grins back. “You spend your whole life not thinking about anything, Gladiator is a FILM, don’t you want to watch something interesting?”

“Friends is interesting!!”

“You’re going to like Gladiator. I’m telling you, you’re going to like it.”

Mitch finally launches himself on top of Matt to try and grab the remote, but Matt just grabs Mitch’s arm and flips him over onto his stomach. Mitchy obviously can’t get out from his grip, but he’s scrappy, and he wriggles around so he’s facing Matt, trapped underneath him.

Mitch’s eyes are huge, and Matt can see the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheek. He’s one of the prettiest dudes Matt has ever met. His lips are so pink. Matt moves closer like he can’t really help it. But then they both realize that wrestling is a bad idea, almost at the same time. Matt can tell by the way Mitch freezes under him. One second, Matt’s pressing him into the mattress, and then Mitch’s breath catches and his eyes widen, and no, nope, Matt’s not doing this. He jerks away, and says, “Okay, Friends?”

Mitch stays frozen on his back for so long Matt starts to wonder if he’s asleep, but then he sits up and says, “Yeah, okay,” and things maybe go back to normal. Matt fluffs up the pillows and puts his arm out. Mitch gives him a bit of a look, but tucks himself into Matt’s side anyways. Normal.

Matt needs to stop whatever it is he’s doing, but he’s not really sure how. It seems to be involuntary.

 

When they get back to Toronto, Matt and Sydney have Mitch over for dinner. After they’ve finished eating, Matt sits on the couch with his arm out, expecting Syd to sit beside him. But this time she hops on the armchair to cuddle Jax, and Mitch curls up next to him instead. They decide to watch Inglourious Basterds, and it’s a good thing they’ve all seen it before, because Mitch obviously talks through most of the movie.

At one point he turns to look up at Matt and says, “You definitely look like Brad Pitt with your haircut right now.”

Matt can tell that Syd is giving them a big look from her nest in the armchair. His stomach kind of swoops when he realizes he’s going to have to deal with that later.

He walks Mitchy to the door at the end of the night. Mitch is asleep on his feet– they were both basically napping for the last half hour of the movie. Mitch’s hair looks fluffy and ridiculous, and Matt knows that his own is doing something similar.

Mitch seems to think so too, because he reaches up to brush a piece of hair off Matt’s forehead and says, “You’re probably better looking than Brad Pitt.” He gives Matt a sleepy smile.

They stand there for a minute, just staring at each other. Mitch breaks first– he blushes a little, and looks away. “My uber is going to be here in like, a minute.”

“Okay. Get home safe.”

 

Matt stares at the door for a solid minute once Mitch is gone. When he turns back to the apartment, Sydney is standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall and watching him.

“Better looking than Brad Pitt, huh?”

Matt blushes for real this time. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“I mean. You know what.”

“Okay. Hold on a second.” Syd grabs them both a beer from the fridge and sits Matt down on the couch.

“What are you apologizing for?” Sydney looks so sweet and earnest and not upset, and Matt is absolutely a piece of shit.

“I can’t stop flirting with Mitch.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t want to lead him on. I keep flirting with him, and I don’t want to lead him on. Syd, I’m so in love with you, but I really want to kiss him. Do you not see how this is a problem?”

Sydney takes a sip of her beer, and doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“I think you should go for it.”

Matt knocks over his beer. “Excuse me?”

Sydney sighs, and walks to the kitchen to get a dish towel. She wipes up the beer and sits back down.

“Let’s start this over again. I think you should go for it with Mitch. You clearly want to, and I don’t mind at all. I actually think it’s pretty cute.”

Matt is completely nonplussed. This is not the way he thought this conversation would go. At all.

“And Mitch is obviously so so so into you. He basically spent the entire evening cuddling you. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t end up making out on the couch during the movie.”

Matt chokes out a laugh.

“Do you think he knows what he’s doing?” he asks.

Sydney laughs, “he’s like, twelve, of course he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Matt frowns. “Okay, maybe don’t call him a literal child when you’re trying to get me to have sex with him.”

“Fine, fine. But seriously, I think it would be good. This way you have someone to take care of you on the road.”

“Really? Mitchy’s gonna take care of me? Have you seen his condo?”

“No, and I really really don’t want to,” says Sydney.

“I’m not saying I’m going to do anything, but… You’re sure you’d be alright with this?”

“Yeah. I mean. I’m not a jealous person? I don’t think so at least. And also, I already have to share you with hockey. And this is basically the same thing. Mitch is part of hockey.” She moves over to sit in Matt’s lap. “If I get uncomfortable I’ll tell you, okay?”

 

So maybe Matt starts going a little bit overboard. He can’t decide if he wants to go for it, but Mitch is still all over him, and just WANTS to be shoved and pushed around constantly, so Matt can’t help but oblige. He shoves him into the boards during drills, and during morning skate, and during warm-ups. At the end of practice he pulls Mitch into a headlock and drags him all the way around the perimeter of the ice. He doesn’t want to let go.

They’ve spent so long goofing off on the ice that all the guys are gone by the time they get to the showers.

And, okay, Matt has never looked at a guy in the showers before in his life, but man is he tempted now. He gets as far as looking at Mitch’s weird calves before he has to turn back to his own shower because he doesn’t want to be the creep with a boner in the locker room.

When they’re done showering, Matt ruffles Mitch’s hair while he’s trying to towel off, and Mitch tries to get him back, and they stand there, basically just messing each other’s hair up as much as possible.

“—Hey. Guys?” Auston is standing at the door of the room, looking a little bit uncomfortable.

Matt lets go of Mitch with a jerk. This is maybe too much touching for two naked guys in a locker room. Auston gives Matt a funny look, but doesn’t say anything, just turns to Mitch. “Are you still coming over for CoD?”

“Oh. Yeah! Yeah, just gimme a minute.” Mitch is a little bit pinker than normal, but he seems calm as he throws on his clothes in record time. Matt goes back to his stall to put deodorant on.

“Later Marty,” says Auston. He’s still staring at Matt, so Matt shrugs at him. “Later.”

Mitch basically leaves a small tornado of hockey gear behind him, and Matt should be irritated, but he mostly just thinks its cute. He picks everything up and puts it in a pile so the equipment guys don’t get mad. And then Matt walks to his car and tries to shake off his nerves.

He and Mitch spend so much time touching each other, and every time Matt feels like he’s on fire, but he keeps doing it, keeps doing more. He can’t stop, he wants to crush him all the time. He honestly never realized how sexual bro-ing around was– maybe because it wasn’t, not until it was with Mitch. He once kissed Casey Cizikas full on the mouth after an exciting game, and didn’t even think twice about it, it was just a really good game, and Casey was his really good bro.

He would think twice about kissing Mitch. He has. He’s thought about it three, four, ten times, probably more.

There’s a part of him that can’t believe he’s allowed to grab Mitch the way he does, and another part that feels horribly guilty that he could pass it off as just bros if anyone called him on it. He has a brief vision of doing that to Mitch if he ever brought it up, and it makes him feel so sick he has to curl up with Jax for an hour, until he feels only marginally better.

Matt feels pretty ridiculous that he’s having this late in life realization– like, he’s spent his entire adolescence and adult life surrounded by naked men, and this is only just coming up now? He’s definitely not gay because he’s majorly in love with Sydney, and probably wants to marry her someday. But he also loves Mitch a whole lot, in a completely different way than he’s loved any of his other friends. (In a gay way, his brain helpfully supplies.)

He’s for sure terrified. But his urge to protect Mitch is stronger than that. If he shuts down because he’s too repressed or afraid or some shit like that, it would hurt Mitch, really bad. That’s scarier than anything else. He’s actually kind of glad he didn’t have to deal with any of this back in juniors. He can barely handle it now, definitely wouldn’t have been able to handle it at sixteen.

 

Eventually though, Matt does decide to make a move, and he commits one hundred percent. No one can accuse him of being impulsive; he’s been thinking about this for weeks. They’re on another road trip, in Vancouver, and they’re back in Matt’s room again.

“Wanna watch Friends? It’s probably on on one of these channels,” Mitch says, reaching for the remote. He seems pretty keyed up though. Too restless to sit still and watch TV. Matt feels the same.

It feels like a moment. It feels like THE moment. And Matt has thought about this so much, how he’d do it and make it great.

So Matt takes the remote out of Mitch’s hands and turns off the TV. “How about instead of watching something dumb, I teach you how to fight properly?”

“Seriously?” says Mitch.

“Seriously. It seems like a pretty huge oversight on my part not to share with you the wisdom I’ve gained over the years.”

“Wisdom, really?” says Mitch gleefully.

“Oh for sure, my wisdom is pretty elite.”

“Yeah right!”

“You know I’m right.”

“In your dreams, bud.”

It’s absolutely the dumbest chirping Matt has ever taken part in. He’d be embarrassed if he wasn’t so nervous.

“Okay, stand up. Obviously the most important thing is keeping your balance.” Mitch nods enthusiastically. “So you want to grab a hold of your opponent’s jersey as quickly as possible. Right on the front of the shoulder.” He reaches out to grab Mitch right there. “You’re not going to overpower anyone, so you just want to stay upright and try not to get injured before the linesmen break it up.”

“Okay.” Mitch nods again, but he’s not moving.

“C’mon, grab my shirt, right here.” Matt pats his own shoulder. Mitch grabs on.

They’re standing totally still, but they might as well be circling each other on the ice. It feels like the room is spinning, or maybe they are, spinning around each other.

“Honestly, your best bet is probably just to get to a place where there’s no punching at all. So you want to tie up the guy’s other arm too– here, grab my arm right here.” He lets go for a second to position Mitch’s other arm, and then holds on again with both hands. He has one hand fisted in the shoulder part of Mitch’s shirt, and the other is grabbing his upper arm. He can feel the definition in Mitch’s bicep, and it feels great, so he lets himself squeeze, rub his thumb in a little circle.

“Uh, Matt?”

“Yeah?” Matt pulls him a little closer, kind of wraps his arms around him.

“This doesn’t really seem like fighting dude.”

“It’s not.” And Matt kisses him.

Mitch makes a muffled squeaking sound and melts into Matt. It’s a little more desperate than Matt was going for, but he goes with it, reaches his hand up to cup Mitch’s cheek and licks into his mouth. Matt can feel Mitch’s pulse under his thumb, and the way his hands are shaking, just a little bit.

He thinks it’s going great, and then Mitch gets a hand between them and shoves him back.

“Jesus, Matt, what are you doing?” Mitch’s eyes are wide, and he looks like he wants to run. Matt still has a hand in his hair, and he can’t help running his fingers through the short bits at the back of Mitch’s neck. Mitch softens a bit, but then shakes himself, and says, “Okay, wait, wait, hold on. You’re straight!”

“Um. Probably not.”

“What?”

Matt says, “I mean, I like you. So, I guess, I’m definitely not straight.”

“Okay, but you also have a girlfriend. Matt, I love Sydney so much, she’s so great, we can’t do this to her.” Mitch looks like he’s going to cry, and holy shit this was not what Matt was going for.

“Wait, Mitch, its fine—”

“No! It’s not, I’m going to destroy your relationship and then they’re going to trade me to Montreal and I CAN’T play for the Habs, I’ll have to quit hockey and become like, an insurance salesman or something.”

“I talked to Syd about you.”

“What?”

“It took me a while to figure out, but I’ve liked you since training camp. And I want to like, date you. And Syd is okay with it, really. You can talk to her about it.”

“Really? I thought I was too much, that I was freaking you out.”

“Nope. I was kind of ridiculously into it.” Matt blushes a little. “I’m kind of ridiculously into you.”

And Mitch smiles at that, really big, the kind of smile that Matt is always trying to make happen.

“Holy shit, ‘let me teach you to fight’? That was so romantic bro.” Mitch pauses and looks at his hands. “Sorry I fucked it up.”

“You didn’t. I’m an idiot. I should have explained what was going on, instead of leading with my tongue.”

Mitch laughs. “I mean, I liked that part. Maybe we could try it again with a little less angst?”

Matt laughs too and reaches out to tug Mitch back into his arms. “Yeah, sounds good.”

 

Sydney is waiting for Matt to tell her how everything went when he gets home from his flight the next day. She honestly seems a little bit too excited, but Matt can work with that.

When he’s finished putting away his bags, and they’re sitting comfortably on the couch he says, “I could tell you about it if you like?”

“Um, sure?” Syd moves closer to him on the couch.

“I mean, um, I started, uh, kissing him, and, you know, his eyes are uh, really blue-“

“Okay, I don’t think we’re that kind of couple,” Syd cuts him off. “Plus, you sound like you’re doing a post-game interview.”

And Syd doesn’t look mad, or jealous or anything, just a little bit put off, and also kind of fond. So Matt pulls her onto his lap and kisses her as hard as he can.

 

“Hey, wanna go see a movie tonight?” Mitch asks softly as they’re getting dressed after a hard practice.

“Um. Yeah?”

“Yeah? We don’t have to. What’s up?”

“Just. Don’t you think people will notice if we keep going on dates?” Matt is a little bit freaked out about their relationship getting out. But Mitch just turns to him and says, “Relax Marty. Straight people are so dumb, no one will ever guess. Its chill, we have dinner dates, that’s a thing that bros do. Everyone will just think we’re super cute. Hashtag bromance.”

And they’re having this conversation in the locker room, even if most of the guys are still showering, so maybe Matt’s not actually as worried about people finding out as he could be. Auston’s there even, sitting at his stall fully dressed, engrossed in his phone. Matt nods over, to point him out to Mitch, like, ‘see, there’s someone here, we should be discreet.’ But Mitch just looks over at Auston and calls out, “Going to dinner and a movie, that’s a thing bros do, right Matts?”

Auston looks up from his phone. “What?”

“Dinner dates with bros, no homo, right?”

Auston looks at Matt, and then back at Mitchy again. “I don’t think I want to get involved in this.”

Matt nods, “That’s probably for the best,” and Auston goes back to his phone.

The guys start trickling into the room from the showers. Mo is yelling about their upcoming game against Boston, “So, who’s going to get into a fight this time?”

“Not me,” says Naz. “I’m trying to win the Lady Byng.” The guys all laugh.

“Marty should definitely fight Chara again,” Zach adds.

Willy says, “Yeah, maybe he’ll even win this time!”

“Hey, fuck you!” Matt shoves Willy into his pile of equipment. “Just for that, I’m fighting him again, and this time I’m definitely winning!”

“Maybe I’ll get into a fight!” Mitch pipes up.

Naz says, “Sure Mitchy, whatever you say.” He leans over to ruffle Mitch’s hair. Matt wishes all the guys would stop doing that– it’s kind of his move.

“I could fight someone. How do you know I couldn’t? I totally could, I’ll fight anyone.” Mitch grins, real wide. “Marty’s giving me lessons.”

**Author's Note:**

> To prepare for writing this I watched the Matt/Mitch Leaf to Leaf videos like ten times. Both of their videos are absolutely perfect.
> 
> There's also probably another whole fic in here that's just Auston looking at his friends and being like, 'man these guys are idiots.'
> 
> ALSO come talk to me on tumblr! I'm @snackboimitch


End file.
